Homeless animals - especially dogsis a huge problem for Russia. After each high-profile case with their participation, they try to solve it, but no success is expected, despite changes in legislation. After the incident in Yakytsk, Russian animal rights activists are ringing all the bells, posting heartbreaking footage of dog trapping on social networks, accompanying them with no less soulful comments, which are designed to take out as many "living souls" as possible to Moscow and other cities.
You read these texts, listen to the words, and it seems that it is impossible to remain indifferent. They all make a softening massage to your soul and heart with their suffixes and general diminutive pity. Dogs, doggies, eyes, noses, mesh, cage, leash... Look into their eyes! They so want to live!
There are hundreds of comments of a similar nature under the video or cutting frames to sad music.
Among them are:
- short emotional ones: “Tears are choking!”, “I can’t roar!”;
- philosophical: “We are responsible for those whom we have tamed”, “The more I know people, the more I love dogs” and various other quotes and parables pulled from the Internet;
- and my favorites (the deepest, root-seeing ones): “Dogs never bite a good man! They sense bad people!”
And, you know, it's not so bad anymore ...
"She just wanted to play!"
People who have been hurt by a dog are unlikely to join this weeping choir of animal rights activists. There are simply events and facts after which life will no longer be the same, because you look at things differently. This is my case too, because I was a child who was attacked by a stray dog.
I spent every summer with my grandmother. The countryside in Russia is a sad place for both people and animals. Cats are almost always on their own, as are dogs, who often sit on a chain or in an aviary.
It was a carefree summer for an ordinary child of 8 years old. I was returning home from the garden, when suddenly Vesta jumped out at me from around the corner - a large beautiful dog, similar to a half-breed or VEO, or a German shepherd. She was not the owner, but she was fed and given a beautiful name by our neighbors, who either brought her food or threw something over the balcony. On that very day, they left for the city (as we later found out when we went to sort it out), apparently leaving her hungry.
I didn’t have my own dog then, which came later, and I was surprised how hard a dog’s “hug” can be. She jumped out at me, stood up to her full height, pushed me with her front paws on the shoulders, knocked me down and began to wallow, trying to grab me with her teeth.
I understand why many in such cases cannot turn on their heads, run or defend themselves. I was paralyzed with surprise and fear. I don't know where I've seen this before (maybe purely instinctively), but I crouched, curled into a fetal position, shielding my face, pressing my head to my knees. Vesta painfully grabbed my thigh, but then I heard someone's human screams.
It was a woman from a neighboring house, who drove her away, beat her off with a bag, picked me up and escorted me home. Grandma was not at home, and at first I planned to hide what happened, but it didn’t work out. I returned crying, drooling and biting, in torn shorts and with a deep bite from which blood oozed. It was difficult for a child to hide all this.
When my grandmother returned, everything was already reported to her (as always in the villages). The next day, when the conditional "owners" of Vesta finally returned, we went to them.
What was there! Yes, the same thing that is happening today in the comments of social networks:
"It can not be! She's kind! She never bit anyone! She probably just wanted to play!
In a village with a dog that has bitten a person, especially a child, the conversation is short (if you know what I mean). To avoid this, they cajoled us as best they could: they gave us some kind of cool ointment, all summer they wore either cherries or strawberries in basins, gave me sweets and chocolates... They took Vesta to their garden and put it on a chain. No one else saw her running around the village.
I did not begin to hate dogs, I already started them and will still start them. But the ownerless mongrels roaming the streets still terrify me. I can't stand it when a dog jumps up or stands up. Even if she is small, kind and wants to play. I saw such games in a wooden box.
Russian humanism against the "soullessness" of the civilized West
Russian animal rights activists are very fond of pointing at the prosperous countries of the West, in which there are no dogs on the streets. Dear ones, they are not there, not because all Americans or Europeans are completely responsible dog lovers!
Google English-language forums with questions like “how to deactivate a dog’s chip?”, “Where to give an unwanted dog?”. Look on Instagram for shelters or volunteer communities in the United States that are taking care of skeleton dogs in a nightmare condition, pit bulls untied from a tree, thoroughbred handsome men rescued from basements and garages, who became a burden for their hosts.
There are no stray dogs on the streets, because any dog without an owner immediately gets into a shelter or temporary detention center. Next - restoration (if necessary), search for the owner (old or new). If after the expiration of time no one wanted to take the dog, then euthanasia follows. Not always, but most often.
Look at posts with lists to put to sleep in volunteer communities. Photos of the most beautiful huskies, pit bulls, labradors "On The Euthanasia List" with the date. Quite often, purebred dogs, which in Russia are rather rare for shelters in such numbers.
Shelters in the West are usually a point of temporary detention, overexposure with excellent conditions, but not permanent residence of useless animals. They are small, financed by private donations, which are not limitless, so they need to be released for the next "parties". A dog should live with an owner who takes care of it and is responsible for it, and not live at least somehow, just to live.
Shelters where 2-3 thousand dogs are kept is a purely Russian story. In Germany, they would rather euthanize a dog than give it to someone who cannot take good care of it. In Russia, hundreds and thousands of dogs will be kept, which lie around the clock in their faeces, 10 individuals in one outdoor enclosure in the heat of +30 and frost of -30, feeding them with food similar to building mixture. Only not lulling (but who are we to decide other people's destinies!). This is what domestic humanity looks like.
Oh yes! Russian stray dogs do not have to live in a shelter. There are cities and villages that are recognized as their natural habitat. Only a tag in the ear does not make a dog well-fed and kind. The tag in the dog's ear is the legalization of homelessness and the painting of our society in helplessness and irresponsibility.
Author: dog breeder in the past and future, cat owner in the present
This article is the subjective opinion of the author.
